10 ms·

From my understanding of USA as a foreigner, tax dollars are for corporate bailouts and military.

petcat 2mo ago
As an American, tax dollars are for re-paving the parking lot at our middle school, establishing a water district for our town, buying another school bus, and funding our municipal fire department and ambulance corp. Any money collected by the feds is whatever. Hopefully it goes toward NASA putting another robot on Mars.
- tehjoker 2mo ago
  This is kind of a strange take. Local taxes are for petty but useful stuff because the sovereignty of your locality is heavily circumscribed by state and national authorities. That means the real budgetary decisions made about the future of the nation, anything interesting, anything made with some level of self-determination, is made at the national level. Unfortunately, in the USA, budgetary discretion is used for war and rhetorically defended by all politicians while the non-discretionary spending on e.g. social security, is constantly attacked.
  - petcat 2mo ago
    This is kind of a strange take. > Local taxes are for petty but useful stuff My state has completely state-funded healthcare, and a renowned state-funded university system. USA is a nation of states and those states (mostly) make their own way. I live in one of the good ones.
    - tehjoker 2mo ago
      It makes me feel a little crazy seeing the constitutional architecture post-civil war used to diffuse responsibility away from the federal government and divide the people against each other working in action. People act like this isn't a country with very definite choices being made or that if something is bad over there, it doesn't matter over here. The wealthy, the corporations, the army, and the central government all deal with this place as a unified entity with various domestic fractures to exploit for their own purposes.
WalterBright 2mo ago
66% of Federal spending is on entitlements.
- triceratops 2mo ago
  Social Security and Medicare have a separate, capped tax though. They're funded through that tax. Federal tax is effectively uncapped. Where does it go?
strictnein 2mo ago
That is the understanding that you've been presented with, likely by people looking to mislead you, but that's not at all what our actual budget reflects. The social safety nets that we supposedly don't have take up around 2/3rds of our federal budget.
- Loughla 2mo ago
  It's like 50% if you also count the stuff I pay for that is a direct benefit to me at retirement (as does anyone who pays into social security). So it might be a little nitpicky, and your point still stands. A lot of money is spent on defense and business, but not as much as the before portrays. Where businesses benefit is in not paying the tax, instead of receiving payments. That's definitely a problem, but it's a different thing.
  - john-h-k 2mo ago
    > It's like 50% if you also count the stuff I pay for that is a direct benefit to me at retirement (as does anyone who pays into social security) It’s not though. The social security you pay is used to fund the current social security payouts. It’s not saved away for you
    - Loughla 2mo ago
      Okay? If I pay in and then get that benefit when it's my time to draw that benefit, it doesn't matter if it's my actual dollar or not. Technically right isn't the best right sometimes. Also my point was that the original claim of 2/3 of the federal budget going to social programs is just wrong. It's well under half unless you count ss. Then it's about half.

As an American, tax dollars are for re-paving the parking lot at our middle school, establishing a water district for our town, buying another school bus, and funding our municipal fire department and ambulance corp. Any money collected by the feds is whatever. Hopefully it goes toward NASA putting another robot on Mars.

tehjoker 2mo ago
This is kind of a strange take. Local taxes are for petty but useful stuff because the sovereignty of your locality is heavily circumscribed by state and national authorities. That means the real budgetary decisions made about the future of the nation, anything interesting, anything made with some level of self-determination, is made at the national level. Unfortunately, in the USA, budgetary discretion is used for war and rhetorically defended by all politicians while the non-discretionary spending on e.g. social security, is constantly attacked.
- petcat 2mo ago
  This is kind of a strange take. > Local taxes are for petty but useful stuff My state has completely state-funded healthcare, and a renowned state-funded university system. USA is a nation of states and those states (mostly) make their own way. I live in one of the good ones.
  - tehjoker 2mo ago
    It makes me feel a little crazy seeing the constitutional architecture post-civil war used to diffuse responsibility away from the federal government and divide the people against each other working in action. People act like this isn't a country with very definite choices being made or that if something is bad over there, it doesn't matter over here. The wealthy, the corporations, the army, and the central government all deal with this place as a unified entity with various domestic fractures to exploit for their own purposes.

WalterBright 2mo ago

66% of Federal spending is on entitlements.

triceratops 2mo ago
Social Security and Medicare have a separate, capped tax though. They're funded through that tax. Federal tax is effectively uncapped. Where does it go?

strictnein 2mo ago

That is the understanding that you've been presented with, likely by people looking to mislead you, but that's not at all what our actual budget reflects. The social safety nets that we supposedly don't have take up around 2/3rds of our federal budget.

Loughla 2mo ago
It's like 50% if you also count the stuff I pay for that is a direct benefit to me at retirement (as does anyone who pays into social security). So it might be a little nitpicky, and your point still stands. A lot of money is spent on defense and business, but not as much as the before portrays. Where businesses benefit is in not paying the tax, instead of receiving payments. That's definitely a problem, but it's a different thing.
- john-h-k 2mo ago
  > It's like 50% if you also count the stuff I pay for that is a direct benefit to me at retirement (as does anyone who pays into social security) It’s not though. The social security you pay is used to fund the current social security payouts. It’s not saved away for you
  - Loughla 2mo ago
    Okay? If I pay in and then get that benefit when it's my time to draw that benefit, it doesn't matter if it's my actual dollar or not. Technically right isn't the best right sometimes. Also my point was that the original claim of 2/3 of the federal budget going to social programs is just wrong. It's well under half unless you count ss. Then it's about half.